Preface

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Disks and disk health are given scant attention in the broad scheme of things. As you look over the computer press, you read plenty about CPUs, RAM, networks, integration, and the server wars. Hard disks barely seem to merit a mention, except perhaps once or twice a year whenever a bigger or faster drive comes out.

Hard Drives: The Biggest Source of Failure

Yet, disk drives account for more server failures and repairs than any other factor. According to the 2002 PC Magazine reader survey, hard drive repairs are by far the number one reason for server downtime among Windows-based servers (this holds true for UNIX servers, too, by the way). When several thousand server users were asked to name a specific cause of failure in servers, the results were surprisingly consistent (Exhibit 1). As you can see, hard drives account for half the reported failures. Other surveys have recorded similar findings, so it seems that more needs to be written about hard drives and disk management in general.

Exhibit 1: Causes of Server Failure

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